Spend Matters Afternoon Coffee

Who gets a balcony?Staterooms, Not Dorms, All Thanks to Mold -- Kimberly Fitzgerald, a freshman at St. Mary's College of Maryland here, loves it when people ask where she lives. "It's a good story to tell," she said. That is because Ms. Fitzgerald and 239 schoolmates live on a cruise ship that was converted into student housing after an outbreak of mold shut down two dorms on campus. The closing forced students into hotels miles from campus, and Ms. Fitzgerald, 18, stayed in a Holiday Inn that was a 45-minute drive from campus. College officials searched for a closer and safer alternative, and on the suggestion of an alumnus, moved the students to the ship, the Sea Voyager.

sharedserviceslink.com branches out in the US.Americans vs Europeans – who's leading in the shared services race? -- There are key milestones in all businesses. Some are significant and mean you have come a long way, like when a young e-invoicing network sees their millionth e-invoicing flow through the network. Others are significant and stand like a gateway to an even greater opportunity. The recent key milestone for sharedserviceslink.com was our inaugural North American event - the Summit for Leaders in Finance Shared Services. It was a bit of a proof of concept for us. Would the Americans like our model? Would they 'get' the format that so seems to resonate with a European audience?

Everything sucks.How Do Recessions Affect the C-Suite? -- According to research by Yale labor economist Lisa Kahn, beginning your career during a recession can be a real drag, for a real long time. Finding that first job is obviously harder, and even when you do, the pay is usually much less. Kahn found (full paper here) that people who get their first job during a recession have a starting salary that's on average 25 percent lower than it would be during a boom. Seventeen years later, those people are typically earning 10 percent less than they would had they started during a better economy. But what about CEOs who start their business career during a recession? Is it any different for them?

GROSS.Bed Bugs on Airplanes?! Yikes! How to Fly Bed Bug-Free -- According to the Daily Mail, British Airways was forced to fumigate two planes after discovering a bed bug infestation on a Los Angeles-London flight. However, BA did not act quickly; the business class passenger, Zane Selkirk, became so disgruntled by the airline's lack of response to her complaints that she set up a website and posted photos of her bite-covered arms, legs and feet online and they went viral and it wasn't until then that BA conducted an investigation and found the bugs. Another passenger wrote an op-ed letter to the New York Times last year after flying United Airlines to Washington D.C. from L.A. -- again in business class -- and arriving covered in bites his doctor diagnosed as bed bug bites.